


Not So Secret

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Somewhat Overprotective Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 20:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Belle’s friends are rather put out to find that she’s been dating someone without their knowledge. Belle doesn’t care.Written for the Monthly Rumbelling prompt: “You have a lot of nerve saying ‘hello’ like nothing happened!”





	Not So Secret

**Not So Secret, A Monthly Rumbelling Fic**

**Rated:** T

**Prompt:** “You have a lot of nerve saying ‘hello’ like nothing happened!”

**Summary:** Belle’s friends are rather put out to find that she’s been dating someone without their knowledge. Belle doesn’t care.

**Word Count:** 2113

=====

**Not So Secret**

“You have a lot of nerve saying ‘hello’ like nothing happened!”

Belle blinked at Ruby’s vehement statement. All she had done was come into the diner and sit down in her usual booth, and suddenly she had been accosted by Ruby and Ariel sliding into the booth opposite her and fixing her with somewhat ferocious expressions, to which she had greeted them with a simple ‘hello’. Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to say.

“I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to deserve your wrath, but I’m very sorry for whatever it is.”

“We saw you!” Ruby exploded, gesturing wildly towards the door and almost knocking a plate of waffles out of Ashley’s hand as the other waitress brought an order to the next booth.

“You saw me doing what?” Belle asked.

“Gold!” Ariel said. At least Ariel’s face was beginning to look more excited and fascinated than angry, but Ruby still looked as if she wanted to set a pack of wild dogs on her friend. Or perhaps set a pack of wild dogs on Gold. Or maybe both. At least that explained what they had seen her doing. She had assumed that the back of Gold’s shop would have afforded them some measure of privacy.

“I can assure you that I have never done Mr Gold in my life,” Belle said primly. “Our relationship is entirely non-carnal.”

“Yes, for the moment,” Ruby said. “But you can’t tell me that you weren’t thinking about it when you were sucking his face off!”

“Ruby!” Ariel smacked her friend’s arm. “What Ruby is trying to say is that why didn’t you tell us that you were seeing him?”

“Well… It’s kind of a new thing,” Belle said weakly, the force of Ruby’s glare weakening her resolve. “I don’t see why you’re so upset about this. You were the one who told me I needed  to get back in the dating game after Gaston.”

“Yes, but not with Gold!” Ruby exclaimed. “I meant with someone, you know, _nice_. And slightly closer to your own age! What about Will? He’s lovely, and you spend a lot of time with him!”

“He’s also got a girlfriend,” Belle pointed out.

“Keith?”

“He’s tried to grab my ass on at least ten separate occasions.”

“And mine,” Ariel mused. “And yours,” she added to Ruby.

“He’d still be better than Gold!”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Really? The serial sleaze who’s one grope away from an assault charge at any time is better than the perfectly respectable pawnbroker? You’re not setting the bar for my lovelife very high here, Ruby.”

“Well, you will go and kiss the terror of the town!” Ruby gave a long sigh and her fearsome expression faded. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Belle. You know what he’s like.”

“Yes, I do,” Belle countered. “I know he’s smart, and he makes me smile and laugh, and that there’s an awful lot more to him than you think. And I know that he would never hurt me.” She paused. “Your concern is touching but… worryingly exuberant. I know what I’m doing, Ruby. I know who he is. You’ve got to trust me on this. He’s a good man, beneath what the rest of the town sees.”

Ruby frowned. “The last time I trusted you with your own dating experiences you ended up with Gaston.”

“It sounds like you’re blaming my lack of judgment for the fact he turned out to be a cheating bastard,” Belle said coolly.

“I don’t mean it like that!”

“Then trust me on Gold!”

Her voice had become a little louder than she had realised, and she noticed that the entire diner was now looking at her with morbid fascination.

“Ok, ok, nothing to see here,” Ruby said, entirely unconvincingly, waving the other patrons back to their meals. Although there were no longer several pairs of eyes fixed on her, one could still have heard a pin drop. Ruby rolled her eyes and leaned in close, her voice barely above a whisper.

“All right. I’ll trust you on Gold. But the minute you need me, just say the word and I’ll lock him in the freezer until he begs for mercy.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Ruby.”

“Nevertheless, the offer will remain open.”

“Ruby, do you maybe understand now why I didn’t tell you, since I knew that this was the reaction you were going to have?”

Ruby considered this point for a moment and narrowed her eyes, but refused to concede it, saying that her break was over and getting up from the booth to go back to her shift. As soon as Ruby had left, Ariel shuffled up on the seat so that she was directly opposite Belle and broke into a grin.

“So, tell me everything!”

“There’s nothing to tell, Ariel.”

“Oh come on! You can’t just drop the bombshell on us that you’re dating Gold and then not divulge any of the details. How long has this been going on? How did it start? When are you seeing him again?” She dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Is he a good kisser?”

“Ariel, two minutes ago you were furious that I was seeing the guy and now you want all the juicy gossip?”

“No, Ruby was furious that you were seeing him. I was furious that you hadn’t _told me_ you were seeing him because that meant I was missing out on all the juicy gossip.” She steepled her fingers and leaned in close. “So… spill.”

Belle shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. We’re dating, that’s all.”

“What do you mean nothing to tell! He’s the most inscrutable and mysterious man in town! I knew you were sort of friends with him but there’s a big difference between polite conversation and what you were doing! And you’re now intimately acquainted with the back room of his shop where no-one ever goes!”

Once again, the entire diner looked over at the booth, and Belle groaned, resting her head against the table to avoid the stares from the other patrons.

“Oh, that wasn’t a euphemism,” Ariel called to the diner. “I just mean she’s seen the back room. Not like, done things in it. Although you were kissing him in it and…”

“Ariel…” Belle said without removing her forehead from the formica, “just stop.”

“Ok. But you’ve got to give me some more information to work with here, Belle. You don’t just go from not dating a guy to dating a guy - and a guy like Gold to boot - without there being a story to tell behind it. You didn’t just wake up one day and say ‘right, me and Mr Gold are dating now’.”

“Would it shut you up if I said that was what had happened?” Belle finally sat up again and gave Ariel a pleading look. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gold enter the diner, right on time for the date that they had set up, and she smiled. Gold met her eyes and returned the expression, but the soft smile turned into something of a smirk when he saw that Ariel was sitting Belle, her back to him, and he began to make his way towards the two women.

“Of course not!” Ariel said, oblivious to Gold coming up behind her. “I need to know everything! Nobody knows anything about him and these things are important!”

“Mr Gold’s kissing ability is important?”

“Yes! Is he the kind who goes in kind of softly and slowly or does he just, you know, go for it.” She paused. “You know what they say about guys with noses like his though,” she added with a conspiratorial wink.

“Really, Miss Del Mar? What do they say about guys with noses like mine?”

Ariel’s face paled as she turned around comically slowly to see Gold standing behind her, then whirled back round to Belle. “You could have told me he was standing _right there_!”

“I could have done, but the look on your face was priceless.”

Ariel’s eyes narrowed and she glanced from Belle to Gold and back again.

“You know, I’m beginning to think he might be a bad influence on you after all,” she muttered, sliding out of the booth to let Gold sit down. Over behind the counter, Ruby scowled at them, waving a pair of tongs threateningly in Gold’s direction.

He simply raised an eyebrow at her and returned his attention to Belle. “May I ask what that was about?”

“Ruby and Ariel saw us in the pawn shop yesterday,” Belle said, cringing internally a little. “Ruby’s offered to lock you in the freezer and Ariel wanted all the details.”

“I see.” Gold seemed to consider this for a moment before shrugging. “Well, I suppose that those are the reactions I would expect when our status became public,” he said. “We’ve certainly garnered the attention of everyone else in the diner.

True enough, all of the other patrons were still staring at them.

“Actually I think that’s more to do with Ariel and my discussion before you arrived.” Belle looked a little sheepish. “She was trying to convince everyone that she had not been talking about me and you getting up to no good in the back of the shop and just ended up digging herself into a hole in the process. Everyone probably thinks that we’re practicing all kinds of strange kinks in there. I’m so sorry.”

Gold just gave a snort of amused laughter. “Don’t worry about it. I think if we’re going to continue this then we’re going to have to get used to the incredulity of the town.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t a thought that Belle was particularly looking forward to, but she knew that she needed to get used to it and that people’s opinions of Gold, like Ruby’s, would not change overnight. She had known that when she had first made the decision to act upon her feelings towards him, and how she couldn’t regret it. She had Gold after all, and that made up for all of the strange looks that she might have got. Their friendship had always been dear to her, even if none of the other townsfolk seemed to have noticed it until Ariel and Ruby’s untimely eavesdropping. That she had taken that first step towards being more than friends still amazed her, and that Gold had returned her attraction even more so. He had been so supportive in the wake of her break-up from Gaston, and in time, that had developed into something more.

“What can I get you two then?” Ruby asked, coming over with notepad in hand and her brightest smile, obviously trying not to embarrass Belle by being rude to her date in front of her.

Belle gave her order and Ruby turned to Gold.

“My usual please, Miss Lucas. And I’ll take extra ice in the ice tea.”

Ruby’s expression dropped into a scowl for a moment before she beamed at him and made her way back to the counter.

“She’s probably going to ‘accidentally’ drop that ice tea in your lap, you know,” Belle said.

“It’s a risk I was perfectly willing to take to see the look on her face,” Gold replied, his voice utterly benign but his expression devilish. He walked a fine line sometimes in the way he acted, but Belle knew that when it came to her friends he would never push his luck, even if Ruby was being particularly trying. He looked around at the diner, and the other customers quickly turned back to their own plates and tried to look like they were not hanging on every word that was said.

“Shall we give them something to talk about, since they’re so determined to catch some gossip?” Gold asked.

Belle smiled and nodded. Since their relationship had ended up going public anyway, they might as well make the most of it. She got up and moved to sit on the same side of the booth as Gold, he slid further in to make room for her and she settled herself primly beside him before grabbing his tie and pulling him in for a deep kiss. He seemed a little surprised by her sudden passion, but relaxed into the kiss quickly, his arms coming around her back to pull her in closer.

Around them, Belle could hear the diner going quiet again, and the smash and clatter of two glasses of ice tea ending up on the floor as Ruby dropped them.

Belle just smiled to herself as she finally let Gold come up for air. Let them stare.


End file.
